Educators of every kind such as school superintendents, principals, teachers, higher education practitioners, community organizers and even students will gain essential skills, resources and examples to encourage and support individual as well as collective empowerment from early childhood education through college in both traditional classrooms and in the broader community. Working toward the goal of empowering young people as active citizens, this collection of chapters presents voices from across the broad community of educators who share their successful individual work of methods and practices that empower young people to engage in their own agency. By using student centered practices in and out of the classroom, their stories demonstrate multiple ways to successfully achieve these ends. The book clearly and effectively presents these concepts: How to encourage self-directed learning; methods and examples of participatory practices and inquiry methods; strategies designing and supporting Problem Based Learning; models for civic engagement; organizing strategies; and practices related to Critical Race Theory. This collection can provide practitioners with strategies and skills that will encourage and develop self-confidence and self-direction in many arenas working together to create change in a democratic landscape as youth learn to use their power.

Empowering Students for the Future: Using the Right Questions to Teach the Value of Passion, Success, and Failure arms educators with the tools to teach what we all wish we had learned in school. You will uncover how to help your students think deeper, redefine failure, and authentically create their definition of success. Author Eric Yuhasz offers a variety of practical ideas throughout, including rapid-fire questions and a bowl meeting structure to help students find their passions; activities to help students address negativity from social media plus negative, self-inflicted mantras they may unconsciously be following; a chart that enables students to see their progress toward achieving their definition of success; tips for discussing value, sacrifice, self-discipline, motivation, and the tyranny of low expectations; plus ideas for helping students embrace failure as a steppingstone toward learning and triumph. With clear strategies in each chapter, this unique book will show you how your learners can truly map out a happier, healthier, more successful future.

Discover how English teachers and their students confront the climate crisis using critical inquiry, focusing on justice, and taking action. Working in today's politically polarized environment, these teachers know first-hand about teaching and learning in communities that support and resist climate education. This much-needed book describes outstanding English instruction that includes creative and analytical writing; critical place-based learning; contemporary "cli-fi"; young adult, Indigenous, and youth-authored literature; Afrofuturism; critical media analysis; digital media production; and many other ways in which students can explore the crisis and have their voices heard and respected. While the focus is on high school and middle school English Language Arts, there are also relevant and inspiring elementary and college examples. This resource provides everything teachers need to help young people understand and address the climate emergency through supportive and empowering transformational learning. Book Features: Emphasizes addressing the climate crisis as an important dimension of English language arts. Illustrates relevant and effective ways to use writing, critical inquiry, literature, media, speaking, the arts, and publishing. Provides examples of students connecting local climate impacts with national and global events; critically analyzing climate denial, delay, and inaction; considering questions of justice; imagining different futures; and developing their voices and activism. Shares teaching methods, classroom stories, and student work from cities, suburbs, and rural classrooms. Examines questions of climate justice: Who causes the crisis? Who suffers? Why do governments fail to act? What is the experience of climate refugees? What type of world will young people inherit? Explains how students can take action, join with others, and become involved in solutions. Additional resources are available for each chapter at http: //climatecrisisela.pbworks.com

Through work integrated learning (WIL), students, graduates, academics, businesses, employees, governments and communities are empowered to engage in lifelong learning, develop multidisciplinary skills; master technological applications, become a virtual employer or employee, become an entrepreneurial professional and expert, and integrate diversity consciousness into their lives. While individual, economic, community, national and global challenges abound in this regard, this book offers creative solutions that can radically shift perspectives, attitudes and beliefs. It encourages taking a local, national, and global outlook, building ethical borderless businesses and economies, engaging in the 4IR and gig economy, and embracing human-AI integration, among others. The book provides the reader with a helicopter view of global WIL trends, propelling them to co-create and become an entrepreneurial, lifelong learning student of life.

15 strategies to jumpstart student and educator health With rapid technological advancements and changes to how schools must respond to learning and mental health needs, the educational landscape looks considerably different from how it did 20 years ago. How do educators contend with this everchanging future? Jared Scherz answers this question and more by outlining the 15 critical steps to educators’ and students’ health through psychosocial emotional learning. Designed for everyone involved in the educational system—including district administrators, teachers, students, parents, and the business community—this book provides a practical plan with steps to harmonize whole-school health, including sustainable growth in student character development, improvement of organizational health, and reduction of violence and other threats to education. A blueprint of applicable resources is provided, including: • 15 easy-to-follow guidelines for successfully implementing social-emotional learning practices • A spotlight on issues such as empathy, identity formation, self-control, and conflict resolution • Dozens of real-world stories from educators • Anecdotal and data-driven results from successful implementation Educators today must navigate a newer and more dynamic terrain than previous generations. This book provides a practical framework for improving the satisfaction of educators, all through the lens of whole-school health.

The impact a teacher has on students may be profound and lasting. Thus, teacher preparation is grounded in standards to assure that all teacher candidates know the content and have the skills needed to become good teachers. What makes a teacher great? The answer is not clear-cut or easily measured with tests. But we all know a great teacher when we see one. The best teachers have an It Factor that sets them apart from others. It is seemingly intangible and unteachable, as it’s often said that, “Some people are just born to be teachers.” This book challenges that assumption and uncovers the It Factor. Teacher and student voices helped to develop language and tools to examine how teachers are disposed to think and act and how this affects student learning. If we can identify what makes teachers great, we can teach it. Students have a sea of information, opinions and messaging at their fingertips. They find themselves navigating through a myriad of facts and “alternative facts.” Opinions, beliefs, and fallacies share the same platform and status as well grounded information and vetted ideas, fueling tensions among individuals and distance between groups. Developing students who are caring, critical thinkers and problem-solvers may be more important now than ever. The teachers who are right for this challenge have more than content knowledge and teaching skills. To meet this challenge, teachers need to have “It,” that something inside that makes them not just good teachers, but great ones.

This book offers real-life depictions of how colleges and universities are remaking their Teaching & Learningpractices by confronting complacency and building new kinds of futuristic and humanistic programs and practices. Chapter authors present dynamic case studies from 5 institutions in 5 states along with touching interviews that provide insights about being a change agent and impacting institutional change. Probing questions are offered to readers along with a unique worksheet designed to intentionally promote new light bulb moments at one’s own college/university. This book offers thought-provoking and instructive insights into the personalities and policies that enhance, or detract from, institutional evolution and provides practical insights into key levers for targeted, transformational growth. Each case study includes information about the Background for the Change Initiative, the Change Initiative Itself, Challenges & Successes, and Lessons Learned.

Every day educators are presented with enlightening insights, questions, and encounters which reveal how students engage in learning, how new ideas can impact positively on student outcomes and how - when challenges are uncovered - there can be a sense of puzzlement where rethinking of pedagogical approaches is critical for student success. In this volume of Voices from the Classroom, "Contemporary Challenges in Education - Paradoxes and Illuminations", an international team of authors explores paradoxes, shares illuminations and invites you to reflect on educational practices to enhance pedagogy, scaffold learning and keep pace with educational advancements. This collection written by students, teachers, researchers and higher education instructors discusses education across all phases of learning. It explores issues such as instructional scaffolding in kindergarten, understanding transition through children's voices, youth participation in curriculum development of sex education, delivering crisis assistance to university students and staff in times of conflict in Ukraine, using augmented reality for transformative learning, co-creating university practices with staff and students, and how inclusive practices can help meet the needs of international postgraduate students. This comprehensive and diverse collection will have wide appeal for teachers, headmasters, stakeholders in the area of education and all those working in different educational contexts.

This timely book explores the sustainable development goals, how well universities have been able to integrate them into their curriculum, and how universities can institutionalize the goals and sustainable development into their strategic plans and institutional culture